Program Description
University of Chicago Mellon European Visiting Scholar Program
Rationale
While the new Europe does not aim to replace the nation-states, it does require the forging of a new type of collective entity with its own set of institutions while at the same time reforming established ones in every country involved. Traditionally, the supranational political form in Europe that has functioned as an alternative to the nation has been empire. In fact the first references to Europe date back to the reign of Charlemagne. The term quickly disappeared to be replaced by Christendom, but empire remained as a constant temptation and alternative to single, national states. One immediately thinks of the Holy Roman Germanic Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Third Reich. On the borders of Europe, Peter the Great’s empire was based on a European model of Enlightenment, and it is significant that the French Revolution, often considered the founding moment of modern European nation-states, quickly metastasized into the Napoleonic Empire.
The new Europe is thus navigating a difficult course in attempting to weld a union that is neither nation-state nor empire, and a union with a complex relationship between regional and local concerns. Europe is testing its own limits and redefining its institutions on all levels, from courts to national assemblies, from rules of commerce to systems of higher education. In contrast to empires and nation-states, one of the most striking features of the new Europe has been its reluctance to invest a single individual with the symbolic prestige allowing him or her to incarnate the European Union. This refusal or this inability to give Europe a figurehead is of crucial importance, for, among other things, it has led the European Union to place great weight on commerce and jurisprudence and also on culture. The sweeping reforms of many European higher educational systems through the Bologna Process is a striking example, as is the Erasmus program for Europe-wide student exchanges.
The emergence of a multinational and city-strong Europe poses particular problems and challenges for scholarly inquiry. Clearly, paradigms that privilege the sovereignty of the European nation-state so prevalent in the mid-twentieth century no longer have the same currency they once did. At the same time, supranational paradigms cannot be properly understood unless they are viewed in relationship with local and regional issues, issues that seem to oppose in some ways and support in others an emerging supranational Europe.
In many ways Europe is reinventing itself in counter-position to the United States, while at the same time facing great uncertainties as to its own definition, limits, and institutions. In the face of these intellectual and institutional shifts, the University of Chicago has established a new European Center located in Paris with the intention of promoting both the study of and interactions with Europe in all its manifestations. The University of Chicago European Visiting Scholar Program, with major funding from The Andrew Mellon Foundation, is a vital part of the University’s investment in Europe.
Targeted Regions
Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg have been selected to be the focal points for this program for many reasons: they are strong centers of culture and scholarship; they represent a scale of different geo-political positions; they all have a rich regional history and have played complex roles in various types of collective entities from region to nation to empire; and lastly the University of Chicago has solid and sustainable relations with institutions of higher learning in each of these cities.
Institutions and Disciplines
The University of Chicago seeks to identify and recruit dynamic and promising postdoctoral university scholars, as well as qualified individuals at major institutes and academies—such as academies of art, conservatories, and institutes of history. Drawing on a variety of institutions will also help to ensure a representation of disciplines in the humanities broadly conceived, especially history, literary studies, philosophy, anthropology, music, and art history.
Orientation
A two-day orientation session will be organized in the Fall prior to the six-month Chicago residency of each cohort of Mellon Visiting Scholars. The purpose of the session is to introduce the scholars to each other, to provide more information about the University of Chicago and their upcoming residency, and to acquaint them with the University's Center in Paris, which will be the site of the Capstone Conference in the final year of the program.
Residency in Chicago
During the first quarter of their residency, Visiting Scholars will participate in one or more Council on Advanced Studies (CAS) workshops, interact with their colleagues in the Society of Fellows, participate in the life of the department that hosts them, and take pedagogical workshops on the University’s teaching styles and techniques. In the Spring quarter, they will continue the activities of the winter, with the addition of specific responsibilities that might include: teaching a specialized course based on their area of research, co-teaching a course with a University of Chicago faculty member, or co- teaching a course with another Mellon Visiting Scholar. During these six months, the University will secure lodging for the visiting scholars and will provide academic and logistic support through the Society of Fellows, the Office of the Dean of the College, and the various other offices that typically support such visitors.
Each visiting scholar will be placed in a host department and in an interdisciplinary workshop, in which they will be encouraged to be full and active participants, and each scholar will be matched with a faculty mentor. The first quarter of the visiting scholars’ residence will acquaint them with the style and substance of scholarly discourse in their field at the University before they begin teaching their own course in the second quarter of their residence.
Capstone Conference
The culmination of the program will be a Capstone Conference, to be scheduled for the Spring Quarter of the final year of the program and to which all twelve Mellon Visiting Scholars and their faculty mentors from Chicago will be invited. Participants will be asked to present papers on their most recent research concerning the construction of Europe. As a symbolic representation of both Chicago and Europe, the University of Chicago Center in Paris will be the venue for the conference. This location will also provide an opportunity to further acquaint the scholars with the Paris Center and to extend an invitation to become part of an informal European community of scholars who might teach or be granted research residency at the Center during any given quarter. Papers resulting from the conference will be published in a single volume.
Deadlines and Dates
Applications and letters of recommendation in any given year are due in early April of the academic year prior to residency. Decisions are announced 6 weeks thereafter. The mandatory orientation session in Paris takes place in late September or early October. Chicago residency begins in early January and continues through mid-June of the same year. The Capstone Conference will take place in November of 2013.
Year-four dates are as follows: Application Deadline: April 2, 2012. Decisions Announced: May 18, 2012. Orientation session (Paris): September 28-29, 2012. Residency in Chicago: January 1 through June 14, 2013.